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By Henry, May 3, 2009 6:37 pm

Finding what works isn

As with most things in life, practice makes perfect in the realm of knowing how to dress. Even if you don’t need to wear business clothes in the foreseeable future, get a head start now. Start shopping for the clothes you will need. Start dressing up. This way you’ll get comfortable wearing business clothes and you’ll have a better understanding of how things go together.

For most of my life I didn’t need to dress up. I was accustomed to wearing loose fitting and flowy clothes like Hawaiian shirts and Thai fisherman pants. Yes I did have a lot of preppy clothes but they’re preppy, not business. The only times I really dressed up were for graduations, weddings, and funerals. And looking back on those photos I looked awful because I was clueless. Luckily most other people in the world are also clueless. Which means you’ll really standout when you get it right.

When I first started sporting dress shirts and ties on a regular basis, I felt like a fish out of water. I remember having trouble tying my tie. I bought shirts and trousers that didn’t fit well. I wore the wrong fabrics in the wrong seasons. My neck wasn’t used to having my shirts buttoned up all the way. Overall the outfits didn’t feel like they were my personal style.

By the time I got into the clinic I had most of the kinks ironed out: I had the dress clothes I wanted, I no longer felt awkward in what I wore, and I knew how to put together kickass outfits from head to toe.

There are a lot of nuances you simply won’t appreciate until you start getting it all together. You’ll overdo it and under do it until you find your balance. So get to it! Your future starts now.

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By Henry, March 28, 2009 9:04 am

Congruence: The art of style for people of substance

Age-old sages and fashion-forward aficionados agree: how we present ourselves speaks volumes about who we are. But while fashionistas focus on the latest thrends and on designer clothing and accessories, the total package goes much deeper. This includes posture, facial expressions, eye contact, voice tone, personal hygiene, how we dress, and, more importantly, our personality. All of this is energy and human beings recognize positive and negative energy on a subtle level. We may not be able to explain it but we know when we meet someone we can trust and someone we can’t. It’s not in the words they say but in how it is delivered. It is about congruence. When everything about us is aligned – physically, mentally, and energetically — we create trust, openness, and possibility.

Bringing congruence into our lives involves combining substance with style. If you want to get your great ideas across, you need to make it accessible. If you have an innovative product that you know will change the world, package it properly or else people may not even notice it. Don’t be naïve in thinking that substance alone is enough. Even spiritual leaders like the Dalai Lama know the importance of PR and marketing. Consider your style to be your own personal ad agency.

If I paid $900 for this designer t-shirt I too would hide my face in shame.

To be clear, style is nothing without substance. It becomes just an empty shell. If your life is f-cked up, no amount of makeup or bling is going to fool people. Well, at least not other people of substance. At the end of the day substance will triumph over style. So make sure you continue to work on building your substance. But if you don’t want to wait until the end of the day, substance combined with style readily triumphs over both individually.

The Roots of Style
Style comes in many different forms but, in my perspective, all of it is rooted in helping to bring out the uniqueness and inner beauty of who you are as a person so that you are more effective in your interactions with others.

Most forms of style occur on a nonverbal level. How you connect with others, such as adding a simple smile, eye contact or a basic greeting, can mean the difference between someone being helpful or not giving you the time of day. Dressing well and dressing appropriately communicates respect for others and taking pride in how you look. Adding intonation, stress and rhythm into your speaking voice indicates presence, power and confidence. All of these can open doors and create opportunities. Human beings respond much more readily to these nonverbal cues than the actual words we use in conversation. As much as 93% of effective communication is nonverbal. Only 7% is through the words themselves. Humans have been communicating with each other long before any of our complex language systems were invented. Your words are important but they have to be congruent with your nonverbal cues.

When your style is congruent with your character, it will help accentuate your strengths. It will bring out your already interesting personality. But don’t use style as a crutch to hide aspects of yourself you need to work on. Yes it may appear to cover your weaknesses but only superficially. If you are an asshole, people will still know you are an asshole, albeit a second or two later. Continue working on yourself for your own emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. It is the difference between someone who is just physically attractive and someone who is beautiful and radiant. It is the difference between someone who is well dressed and someone who makes a strong presence when they enter a room. For a light to shine brightly, you need a good internal source of power. No amount of style can create true inner strength and inner beauty.

Dressing Well
Dressing well is one aspect of style. But it isn’t about wearing fancy clothes. It isn’t about price tags or designer labels. It is about congruence. This means dressing appropriately, according to the situation, season, mood and, more importantly, your personality, physical attributes and energy.

Daoist Inspired Clothing

For thousands of years of recorded history, humans have recognized the importance of clothing. Beyond mere function or eye candy, clothes are storytellers. They provide insights into the culture and outlook not just of the individual but of a given society or era. For the Daoists (Taoists) in ancient China, clothes help create a harmonious relationship between you, your environment and the people you interact with. The materials, colors, motifs, shapes, silhouettes and patterns all have meaning. Woven together, fabrics can alter or enhance your energy. There is a lot of ancient wisdom passed on through clothing but I will leave that topic for another time.

For now, it is important to begin by knowing what the existing rules are for dress. You can’t break the rules if you don’t know them first. And you don’t want to follow the rules religiously because, then, it isn’t really you. Ultimately you want to follow your intuition and experiment with what works for you to make your own rules. This is what will make your style truly reflect who you are.

In the next several articles on fashion and style, I will be covering some of the basics of what I think is important to dress well. Please comment below if you have any requests, questions or opinions.